Will the same files that unlocked/rooted the N4 work on the N5?

[greydarrah]

I used a fastboot-windows.exe from 1/31/2012 and SuperSU-v0.98.zip for my N4. Will this also work for the N5?

My biggest question is about the installation of a custom recovery...I DON'T want one! To my understanding, this is the number 1 thing that screws up your phones ability to get OTA system updates. Can I root without changing the phones recovery file? If so, can someone tell me how to do it?

 

[Paul627g]

Unlocking the bootloader on any Nexus device is always the same.

Install the proper Android SDK files ( ADB & Fastboot) and appropriate drivers to your computer. PDAnet always has worked well for me when it comes to drivers.

Boot into your bootloader and from Fastboot on your computer type.

fastboot oem unlock

As for obtaining root without flashing a custom recovery, I am not aware of any way to do so without flashing a custom recovery. Custom recovery is required to flash the SuperSU/Superuser file to obtain root.

You can run a custom recovery and when its time for the OTA, flash the stock recovery back to the device. That is easily done by grabbing the factory images from Google and just pulling the " recovery.img " from the package. You would just push that back to the device again using Fastboot and your computer.

fastboot flash recovery name_of_stock_recovery.img

Then you would be good to go on receiving the OTA as long as you haven't modified any system files on the device. Naturally you would have to obtain root again because an OTA will break root.

 

[greydarrah]

So will the SDK that I downloaded last year to do this on my N4 still work, or do I have to find/download a new version of SDK? If I need a new version, where do I get it? There are a lot of us partial idiots out here that could really use a step by step guide. We're smart enough to follow instructions (as long as they are detailed), but lack the brain power to figure it all out on our own.

 

[Paul627g]

I would update your tools package to make sure everything gels good with the new Android OS.

Download the newest Android SDK " tools only " package from the link below. This will give you the basic skeleton of Android SDK.

http://dl.google.com/android/installer_r22.3-windows.exe

Once installed and you open the SDK panel or installer make sure you have downloaded the " platform tools " portion of the SDK. This is the important part that has the ADB and Fastboot files. You can verify you have them by checking you computer and make sure under " android-sdk-windows/ " you have a directory called " platform-tools ". Inside there is the goods you need.

Next I would as mentioned earlier have the drivers installed. PDAnet always did the charm for me. Download it for your computer and allow it to install the drivers.

From there unlocking the bootloader and installing a custom recovery should be the same as all previous versions of Nexus devices.

• Boot your device into the bootloader
• From your computer open a command prompt from within the platform-tools/ folder of the android-sdk-windows package. Using Windows Explorer navigate to this directory. Hold SHIFT and right click to bring up the pop up menu within Windows. Should see an option for " Open command prompt here "

• That will open command prompt as shown below

• Now the fun begins....
• Verify you have a connection between computer by typing " fastboot devices " this should return a set of numbers verifying it has a connection. If it doesn't then check you USB cable and driver installation again.
• Unlocking the bootloader. Type " fastboot oem unlock " this will bring up the standard window on your Nexus device telling you that what your about to do will wipe the device, etc. Normally you navigate with your Volume Up/Down and Select/Enter with Power button. The device will unlock and should reboot.
• From here you can install your favorite custom recovery by either pushing it manually or using Goo Manager or ROM Manager, etc to aid in installing a custom recovery to the device and obtaining root access.

Hope this helps, something I put together on short notice